Of Guts & Garbage
by countessofbiscuit
Summary: In which Hermione takes out the trash and finds two young people necking behind the bins. A sequel to Of Nerve & Nerf. A/N: Revisited my first Clone Wars fic for Rexsoka Week 2k18. Crossposted from Ao3.


The aesthetics of war were one thing. But the exigencies meant everything from transit tickets and newstacks, to hovercarts and Class-5 droids were heavily taxed. So it'd fallen to Hermione to pick up the slack when the sanitation droid fried itself and Dex opted not to replace it.

("Sorry 'Min, FLO's not programmed for that sort of thing. I can't pay overtime, but hey, you wanted extra hours, right?")

No such thing as a free lunch in this economy.

"Unless you're a kriffing Jedi," Hermione huffed as she dragged two stuffed trashbags towards the closest compactor on this block.

It'd been a long shift. Made longer by the squished mess of beebleberries a Dug toddler spent an hour dropping onto the floor, and Flo's worsening flirtation with the dishwasher unit, which had rendered them both idle and unhelpful.

Hermione turned into the alley, some distance behind the diner. Inconveniently, it was also a blackout night; only the very dim glow of a repurposed holo-billboard reminding citizens to go home—and not to use appliances when they got there—allowed her to see much of anything. She willed herself to remain alert, though fatigue blanketed her senses. The power companies had taken the CSF's advice, at least, and now operated the blackouts on a random schedule to throw off the more organised criminals, but opportunists were everywhere, even in CoCo Town. You could see the sky, but people forgot there might still be scum sticking to your feet.

At her approach, scavenging nuna scurried away from sacks that had been dumped in front of the overflowing compactor. Everything nowadays was someone else's problem. Hermione decided to test the chute on the far end, trusting in people's laziness if nothing else—especially the laziness of the new juice joint employees next door. This looked like their _recycling_ , all tidily collected by their fancy sanitation droid, only to be tossed here instead of sent to the plant. The hypocrites.

She dropped her own sacks and walked a couple meters into the gloom. Reaching for the chute hatch, she noticed a pale glow in the space between the compactor and the alley wall. A tilt of her head and Hermione found herself staring at the broad, plated back of a clone soldier. He was pressed up against the wall. Two skinny legs were hitched up and crossed at the ankles around his waist.

Shock rooted Hermione to the spot; it was embarrassment that sent her retreating behind the corner of the compactor. It was dark, but that _hair_ … as blonde as her own. Unmistakable. And the horns just peeking out above the soldier's head confirmed everything.

It was the unusual couple from table six.

They'd been the last ones out. The Togruta had fallen asleep on Blondie— _Rex_ , his name was Rex—while he slurped a shake, trying and failing to blend in with the regular crowd of transient families and freighter pilots. He stuck out like a beldon in a skylane. Hermione had cleaned around them, not wishing to disturb. He took the hint eventually, but not before she'd wondered if he even understood the delicate etiquette of shift work. He'd nudged his companion awake with such tenderness, almost regretfully, like this was the first good snooze she'd had in weeks. Like waking her up might break something besides the tender moment. The more Hermione had glanced at them, the younger _he_ certainly looked. Wide-eyed, awkward, uncertain. Definitely _not_ a droid and definitely _not_ programmed to be a danger to anything but some Separatist scrap. Or a milkshake.

Now that she'd calmed down and the wails of a passing siren had died away, Hermione could make it out: the breathy, sloppy noises of two people kissing like they wanted to do more—much more—but didn't know what or how.

Was this … allowed? She didn't think Jedi could be romantic. Dex always said that was for the best, joking obliquely that the Duke of Mandalore would never take a seat at his counter, and his life and pockets would be poorer for it. The clones didn't have arcane precepts, as far as Hermione knew, and the other soldiers' surprise at finding these two sharing a booth had been short-lived ... though there had been bets won and credits to be quickly spent. Their lives seemed very regimented. Necking in a dark alley at this hour was probably breaking a dozen rules. But these two were officers, however young they appeared; maybe they knew exactly what they were doing?

Hermione almost shot out of her skin when the clone spoke, giving a low voice to her thoughts.

"What are we doing, Ahsoka?"

Or maybe not.

"Really? You want to do this now? Next to the trash compactor?"

Oh great. A lovers' quarrel on _her_ time—but not on Dex's dime, because she'd punched out like an idiot.

"We're having our first kiss next to the trash compactor!"

The girl huffed as if hearing something ridiculous. "This _isn't_ our first kiss."

"What—the—the _game_? That doesn't count, you were wasted."

"Well. _I_ thought it counted. What do you know about first kisses anyway?"

"Enough..." came Rex's reply, hesitant, lilting up into a question left hanging in the air.

"But not enough that you'd be satisfied if we stopped. Really."

"... No."

They fell silent again—or rather, nonverbal, returning to their first-maybe-second kiss. Everything about it seemed so illicit, and yet so mundane: two kids making out in a rare moment of privacy, before the adults found them and forced them to … to go fight a war, in this case. Like something out of a fekked up holodrama.

Hermione _really_ didn't want to be the adult in this situation. She needed to leave. But the trash...

"No. Stop," came Rex's voice again, slurred through a kiss. "We should stop."

There was some shuffling, followed by the dull thud of boots hitting permacrete. "We're not gonna get in trouble, Rex," said Ahsoka, with brazen certainty. "So what's eating you?"

Hermione's palms started to sweat. She was nervous for the girl, oddly sad for the boy, and embarrassed for herself.

"Your mouth."

 _"Hey!"_

Rex reversed thrusters. Wisely. "No! No. I like it. It's just…"

"What?"

"It tastes like meiloo-salsa."

"Oh," came the deflated reply.

Did clones have a really sensitive palette? He had ordered the saddest thing on the menu.

Ahsoka wasn't convinced. "No, there's something else. Please tell me."

"My stomach hurts."

"You shouldn't have had that shake. Bantha-milk—if that's even what it was—will _mess you up_."

"I should get back to base then. Barricade myself in the freshers."

Ahsoka mimicked a loudhailer. "Biohazard in dorn block. Bring in the chemfantry!"

"Might bust out an old reg manual to pass the time. Since we're talking about how much shit I'm going to be in."

"Ugh!" Ahsoka groaned. "Whose business is this but ours? Who's gonna know?"

"Your bosses. I don't have a magna lock on my head like you."

"You worry too much about that," said Ahsoka, though Hermione had to side with Rex on that one. Would the girl know she'd been listening in? "Look, if they give us any grief, I'll … I'll say I ordered you to kiss me or something."

A pause. "That makes it sound worse."

"Yeah, you're right. Forget I said anything."

The alley fell quiet and intimate again, as the couple forgot everything except each other. There was nothing for it: Hermione would have to interrupt. She was exhausted, and she couldn't just _leave_ the trash. It might attract something worse than nunas, and if any police droids rumbled by during the night and scanned the sacks, they'd issue fines, mandatory power outages or no. The juice people could live with that—she suspected they were a subsidiary of TaggeCo, and such companies had entire budgets set aside for environmental penalties—but Dex would dock it straight from her pay.

Hermione crept, quietly and absurdly, back towards the sacks, took them in hand, and shuffled her soles across the permacrete. For good measure, she punted a bottle down into the alley. If the couple unglued themselves, hopefully they'd recognize a beleaguered fast food employee, with no reason to suspect any eavesdropping.

It was only when two blades of green light shot up along the alley wall that Hermione remembered the obvious. These two lovebirds, startled out of a compromising position in the dark, were _armed_ and beyond dangerous.

"Don't shoot! Don't shoot!" she squealed, blinded by a sudden flash and ducking down. As if supersoldier would _miss_.

"Oh kriff!" said the girl, somewhere above her head. "It's fine, Rex. It's just a woman."

Uncurling a little, Hermione found the helmeted clone looking down at her. He'd dimmed his lights, but she couldn't make out much besides the distinctive black visor.

"Let me take those, ma'am," he said, all politeness behind the artificial mouth, severe and downcast.

He had a rich voice—strangely disembodied by the helmet—and that same clipped, offworld accent as the Guardsman who collected what was left of the morning's caf at half-ten each day. Or was it a different soldier each time? She'd never asked his name, and swore she'd start tomorrow.

"It's fine—" she began, as one of the sacks was gently tugged from her hand.

"You're from Dex's," observed Ahsoka. She jumped down from the compactor as Rex tested the hatches for an empty chute. "I hope we didn't keep you late?"

With a glance, she directed the question at Rex. He didn't answer, stuffing the silence and the compactor with a shove of the trashbag.

The awkwardness weighed on Hermione, so she lied. "No, um, a toddler made a mess."

Rex returned with an outstretched hand for the other sack, but when Hermione lifted it for him, the bottom fell right out. A quarter-shift's worth of garbage decanted itself onto the ground.

"Fek!" she cursed, bending down to gather the cleanest pieces first. Plasto: another casualty of war, now that the best of it was being used in clone armor. Then she silently cursed herself for the unkind thought.

A cool hand touched Hermione's shoulder, lightly, and the sensation of standing too close to the edge of something vast sliced through her. For a moment, she feared the Jedi had read her mind.

"Don't worry, I've got this," said Ahsoka. She motioned for Hermione to step back.

Hermione did so, glad for Rex's helmet lights now as she watched napkins, sauce tubes, meat wrappers, and all manner of diner detritus wobble and float upwards into the air. With a _clap!_ of the Jedi's outstretched hands, the pieces smashed together, crunching in on themselves like a super dense star. This ball of trash Ahsoka then sent flying into the compactor, with enough capital-F Force in its wake to slam the hatch closed behind it.

Hermione blinked a couple times. Few people actually witnessed a Jedi in action, and here she was, treated to a practical, yet magical, post-shift demonstration behind the diner.

Next to her, Rex gave a loud buzz from behind his helmet and signalled for a halt like a bolo-ball official. "Endex. Inappropriate use of the Force, Padawan Tano."

Ahsoka made a gesture that would've stopped speeders, had any been around. "I'll show you 'inappropriate,'" she leered at Rex, then, recalling that they weren't still alone, softened her features. "We can't let you go home by yourself, Miss … ?"

"It's Hermione. But really, I'm fine. The station is only a few blocks away." She didn't say it would be an hour or more before the next train. The place would still be half-lit, and she didn't relish holding the oxygen between these two all the way home.

Ahsoka shook her head. "No way. Not in a blackout. Rex can escort you home." She turned to the clone. "You take the bike. I'll, uh, hop back to the Temple."

Now Rex's helmet _really_ looked like it was frowning. To go from an intruder in their little rendezvous to a bogwing in the nest made Hermione want to sink into the ground. He stood there, askew and a little artificial, a plain white sign to indecision. He so palpably wanted to object, but if he wouldn't—couldn't?—counteract his superior girlfriend giving a strong _suggestion_ , she'd do it for him.

"No. I wouldn't dream of—"

"Soter," Rex said suddenly, poking at his wristcomm.

"What about him?" asked Ahsoka.

"He'll be out."

"Oh, good idea," Ahsoka nodded, turning to Hermione, while Rex's helmet bobbed in some silent conversation. "You'll like Sergeant Soter, he's very _genteel_. Not sure about his passengers though."

"He's on his way." Rex extended his arm in an after-you fashion, ready to get going. "Soter will see you home safely, ma'am. Wants to be a designated driver when he grows up."

It sounded like she was about to be thrown into a cab full of drunk clones. That too seemed unlikely ten minutes ago. Genteel or no, her parents would be shocked.

"That's ... very generous, thank you."

"I'm Ahsoka, by the way," the girl said as they walked towards the front of the diner. "I've been coming to Dex's for years, but it's been a while since I was on Coruscant."

"It's a long way from the Jedi Temple to come for a meal." That sounded accusatory, in the circumstances. "I mean, it's so beautiful up there, I'd never leave."

Ahsoka shrugged. "I've been on dry rats—sorry, army rations for what feels like half a cycle. And no one makes a nerf burger like you guys."

Probably because no other establishment cared less for its food-safety rating and served up raw meat slapped between a bun with a shrug. "Dex will appreciate that."

The pavement in front of the diner still pulsed with speeders and groundcars, but it wasn't heaving, and Hermione was belatedly glad for the company. She had neither Togruta vision nor headlamps to slice through the enforced darkness, just puny human eyes that wouldn't see anyone till they were right on top of her.

"Do you live far?" Ahsoka asked, weaving some more small talk as they waited.

Deep enough that her neighbors would probably shed tears of joy for some Jedi street-sweeping. "Thirty-two levels down, just off the Endion Tunnel," she said, as if talking to a local, and Ahsoka nodded like one.

"It's very kind of your sergeant to drive me," Hermione repeated, as Rex ambled up with the idling speederbike. She couldn't shake the odd feeling of being a massive inconvenience, when any other couple's dilatory antics would've just made her cross.

"Our pleasure, ma'am. We like to do a good turn by civilians. Show the Guard we don't just infil every now and then to organize piss-ups in their cantinas." Rex dipped his helmet sideways, maybe in an exaggerated wink. Then he seemed to spot something on Ahsoka's back. With a hesitant hand, he reached under the girl's headtail and when Hermione saw it—a dress clasp, undone—she flushed and looked away. _Stars_ , what had she interrupted?

Staring pointedly at tendrils of speeder lights, Hermione tried to absent herself from their moment. At last, a blinker indicated in their direction. The vehicle that pulled up was army, the Galactic Roundel and blue decals illuminated by Rex's headlamps. Another fully-armored clone, presumably Sergeant Soter, jumped out, threw a brief salute at the two officers standing next to her—"Sirs"—and trotted around to the other side.

"Soter, ma'm," he said, by way of introduction, before opening the passenger door expectantly. "I'm afraid you'll have to sit up front with me."

Rex stepped forward to peer into the speeder. "Zip. The _di'kut_ ," he said, shaking his head at one of the two armored figures passed out in the backseat.

"And who's this?" Ahsoka asked, pointing to the one missing his helmet, his face almost completely obscured by silver glitter and—Hermione's eyes strained in the dark—blood?

"One Trooper Xero of the 327th, Moon Company," said Soter. "Didn't think they were still on Corrie."

"They aren't," Rex sighed. "Clean him up, throw him to Sticky, and if he remembers how to count and stack blocks like a good cadet, he might not get slapped with an AWOL."

Rex thumped the back of the speeder and turned to Ahsoka, who was already astride the bike, adjusting her goggles. With a dashing flick of his skirt-thing, Rex settled in behind her.

"Happy to take over PT tomorrow, sir. If required," Soter said, all innocence, as Hermione buckled up.

"That won't be necessary, sergeant," said Rex. He gripped Ahsoka's waist primly, like one might hold a teacup with lifted pinkies. "Carry on."

"Sir."

Ahsoka revved the bike's engine. "Nice to meet you," she said to Hermione with a bright smile.

"You too." Some platitude about "coming back soon" tugged at the tip of Hermione's tongue, but her mother's old Corellian proverb about not speaking of the voyage home rang in her ears. So she just returned Ahsoka's wave and watched the unusual couple drift into traffic, wishing them a more private conclusion to their evening.

Soter turned towards her, dimming the lights on his helmet, which bore the same blue accents as Rex's, minus the tooka ears. "Now, ma'am, you could make me the luckiest man in the galaxy tonight—"

Hermione braced herself. These accelerated soldiers certainly lived in the fast lane. Maybe gentility in the Grand Army meant proposing to a girl before propositioning her.

"—if you tell me _everything_ those two got up to."


End file.
